


Raven's Tears They Cry

by LucastaPastatheShamanRamen



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Mention of torture, No Major Character Death, Reunion Fic, but no spoilers for end of game, f/f - Freeform, first attempt at this fandom, murdered feels, now that I've thought about it there will definitely be smut, sort of plot spoilers?, there will probably be smut, there's no way my warden wouldn't try to return to Leliana after getting a letter like that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucastaPastatheShamanRamen/pseuds/LucastaPastatheShamanRamen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dearest Nightingale,<br/>It was good of you to send word to your beloved. We wouldn’t have known where to find her otherwise. I have included a few tokens to show you just how much she enjoyed our hospitality.<br/>Your Servant,<br/>Calpernia”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raven's Tears They Cry

**Author's Note:**

> I have a really nasty habit of plotting out these epic tales full of lady-lovin' and swashbuckling and magic and dragons and then never actually sitting down to finish writing them, so this fic was an attempt at both venting an unwelcome melancholy and trying to overcome about ten years of anxiety-driven writer's block. There is mention of torture, and evidence of the aftermath of torture, but no graphic description of the act itself.
> 
> This fic is only the first of five or so reunion scenarios I have in mind for my Leliana/f!Warden OTP, I just happened to be put into a George R.R. Martin frame of mind by the Game of Thrones premier, sooooo, this is the result. The formatting is kind of wonky, but if I messed with it too much longer I would probably have lost my nerve to post it at all (and I'll probably go back and edit it later), so please forgive the oddness, and enjoy!

**The Anderfels**

The wolf tearing into the entrails of his father’s prized ram was the most fearsome beast young Petyr had ever laid eyes on. Enormous, grizzled silver and grey, hardly smaller than the bear he’d seen coming down from the mountains after winter last, with horrifyingly empty dark eyes, red streaked beneath them as if it had been weeping blood.

The flock’s guardians lay dead at the beast’s feet under a dusting of snow, a pair of fiercely loyal dogs that the boy had grown up with. They were an Anders breed, renowned and prized by shepherds the land over, great lumps of white fur and steely muscle that plodded along with their herds and drove off foxes, tawny Screamers—ferocious cats that came down from the Hunterhorns in winter when starvation drove them to easier prey— and of course, wolves. They’d been no match for this one, though. A small stain of red on the beast’s shoulder marked the only wound his father’s dogs had managed to inflict before warning growls gave way to lethal bites.

The boy’s fingers, trembling in fear, wound into the course ruff of fur on the back of his sheep dog’s neck. Bred for obedience instead of protection, the agile black and white bitch had heeded her master’s desperate screams, breaking off from the heels of her large white brothers to return to Petyr’s side. The sheep themselves had long fled and were probably cowering in the ravine at the far side of pasture. The sheep had been the smart ones, Petyr thought. Fear had paralyzed him, rooted him where he stood. He didn’t dare move or make a sound to attract the monster’s attention, not without Fang and Snow to protect him. He might have scrambled up the branches of the oak tree he’d been breaking his fast under but Fly wouldn’t have been able to follow him and he couldn’t have left her alone on the ground.

After the viscera had been consumed the wolf set about stripping muscle from bone, laying the skeleton mostly bare in under an hour, and then cracked open the long bones to get at the succulent marrow inside. Petyr watched on from under the great oak tree, rough bark digging into his back, Fly beside him with her ears back, belly to the ground, whining softly in the back of her throat. His gut clenched more with every sound but he didn’t dare try to shush her, if she’d even listen. Soon enough the wolf decided that all the bones worth cracking had been cracked. It lifted its head, seemed to look straight at Petyr, then turned east to vanish step by step into the whirling, eddying snow.

 

* * *

 

**Very Far Away From The Anderfels**

Listening to the inquisition advisers bickering ranked very, very near the bottom of the list of the ways Morrigan would prefer to spend her afternoon. It mightn’t have been nearly so insufferable if this hadn’t been the way nearly _every_ meeting called at the War Table had gone. Expecting the Spymaster and Commander to reach an accord on any course of action was a fever dream. It exasperated the Seeker, Inquisitor, and Ambassador to no end. Morrigan too, to be perfectly honest, but she had some perspective that lent her a sliver of understanding of their behavior towards each other, jealousy and a lingering possessiveness that had never been dealt with openly in plain speaking. The templar gave sour looks, the bard offered sarcasm and admittedly well-hidden distaste, and _nothing_ was resolved without the Inquisitor’s intervention one way or the other. She could hardly be bothered to act herself, but perhaps she might suggest to the Inquisitor that she lock her advisers in a room together to have it out and not release them until they had done so.

In all fairness, though, Morrigan doubted the two would have seen eye to eye on many matters by virtue of their preferred methods as solder and spy. More often than not these meetings ended in arguments over whether an all out assault on the latest camp of Red Templars or Venatori was the wisest course of action, or if the Inquisition should bide their time and gather more intel before moving. This meeting was no different, the witch thought with a huff. Her disinterest couldn’t have been made any more obvious, arms crossed over her scarcely-covered chest, leaning against the polished edge of the war table, hip cocked to the side, and yellow-eyed gaze slightly out of focus somewhere past the Antivan ambassador’s slumped shoulder.

Morrigan would soon miss the banality of it all. Anything would have been preferable to the sense of dread that filled the pit of her stomach when an ashen-faced and clammy scout pushed his way into the chamber, stammering incoherent apologies and explanations—something about having found a dead scout with a cryptic note containing specific instruction pinned to his chest—and bearing a scroll and a small, ornate chest that smelt faintly of blood and lyrium. Something about that chest had the blood draining from the witch’s already pale face and set bile rising in her throat.

“Sis…Sister Nightingale.” the scroll fell from its precarious perch in the crook of the scout’s elbow as he passed Morrigan on his way around the table to the Spymaster. She knelt to retrieve it, breaking the unadorned wax seal as she straightened and unrolling the parchment while Leliana looked on with furrowed brows. Swallowing past the burning in her throat, Morrigan read aloud;

 

            “Dearest Nightingale,

It was good of you to send word to your beloved. We wouldn't have known where to find her otherwise. I have included a few tokens to show you just how much she enjoyed our hospitality.

            Your Servant,

                        Calpernia”

 

As Morrigan finished reading the lid of the chest sprung open as if the reading of the letter itself had been its key. Josephine took one look inside and stumbled back with a horrified cry, bracing herself against the stone wall behind her and emptying the contents of her stomach violently upon the floor. Morrigan would swear that Leliana had been hit by a petrifaction spell if she hadn’t known any better, she was standing as rigid as a statue, staring with blank, unblinking eyes at the contents, as if her mind itself had frozen and rendered her incapable of reacting. Morrigan was vaguely aware of clamoring voices echoing through the room, but her attention was fixed upon Leliana and forcing down her own fear enough to put one foot in front of the other and make her way around the table.

Morrigan was no stranger to depravity. She had perpetuated her fair share of abhorrent acts upon her enemies and upon a few innocents who had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time and crossed paths with the feral woman. She’d seen the insides of men and beasts, been showered in their blood, but what she saw therein horrified her more deeply than even the Archdemon and looming army of Darkspawn had managed.

Nestled upon a blood-stained sash that had once been a uniform and wholly familiar   shade of blue were a bloody silverite ring and a flayed patch of skin bearing a tattoo she and the bard both had been present at the inking of.

Leliana crumpled to the floor beside her.

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, Cullen's probably going to get picked on. My warden wasn't too keen on his obvious crush in Origins, dislikes templars in general, and tbh I think Leliana would have picked up on the weirdness between the two of them at Lake Calenhad. Cue tempestuous red-headed possessive streak and viola. (Pssst, I *really* enjoy posessive!Leliana, pass it on.)


End file.
